One of my favorite words is “peripatetic.” I first heard it in the finale number from the music, A Chorus Line, and I just loved the way it rolled off the tongue before I even knew what it meant:
She walks into a room
And you know
She's un-
Commonly rare, very unique,
Peripatetic, poetic and chic.
For years I have explained my “portfolio career” by calling it peripatetic. I’ve followed my bliss, or if not bliss, the next interesting opportunity. Somewhere in there I followed an opportunity that I stuck around working on for 12 years, namely BlogHer. But before and after BlogHer I was happy to jump not just jobs, but industries. I was happy to pursue side hustles before they were called that. I was happy to be what I used to call a generalist, rather than find my niche. I rebelled against the very idea of having to decide on and promote my niche.
This didn’t mean I didn’t understand the benefit that having a niche could deliver. I had something like 6-7 blogs back in the day…one about marketing and one about tech; one about being vegan and one about eco-consciousness; one about politics and one about health. And then there was my all-purpose personal blog which spanned topics from all of the above, plus entertainment and pop culture. This newsletter, This Week-ish, has the most in common with that personal blog, which was creatively named, Elisa Camahort’s Personal Blog 😹
I was also that person who tried every social media platform early. There is not a single platform where I had to have some Frankenstein username. I was “elisa,” “elisac,” or “elisacp” on every single one, because I got in early.
Peripatetic, portfolio careerist, and a new term…mental nomad. I’ve always felt all these terms applied. But I have also always drawn my own personal boundaries around what those terms meant.
Just today my longtime friend Morra Aarons-Mele wrote a post about authenticity and bringing your whole self to work, and it reminded me of the advice I first started giving 20 years ago: To be authentic, everything you say should be true. But you don’t have to say everything that is true.
Even back when I had 7 blogs, and I was happy to talk about potentially taboo topics for public consumption, like politics, religion, or money, but I didn’t talk about my family or my relationships. Still authentic. Just with boundaries.
Some other distinctions I draw: I learned a lesson back in 2016, and now I share only public praise of the person or position I favor, and save my critiques for private conversation. Because there is just so much you don’t control about how your words are amplified and distributed online.
And that reality has led me to narrow down where I’m visible, even though I used to be visible wherever you might look. I’m still messing about with technology (like AI tools) but I am focused on exercising my brain and expanding my perspective, learning new skills or re-learning things I used to know. (If you’re interested in how I’m doing this messing about, the Optionality newsletter I mention below outlines exactly the kind of projects I’m creating for myself.)
Today I’m not looking to be a citizen of the digital world. I’m looking for a handful of places to call home. That’s why my “quick actions” are not just quick, but also limited.
quick actions: the handful of places I call home
This is where I hang online. I’d love to see you in any of these places:
The one social media platform where I spend time & energy is Threads
I’m talking about Optionality with our members. (Or subscribe to our Substack. I wrote last week’s newsletter.)
The #BuffyLifeLessons newsletter is going strong
I use Linkedin, though really just to share the the first three places 🤷🏻♀️
So, about narrowing down
I’ve already narrowed down a lot. It’s not that I’ve flounced from places (I still post each day’s Wordle to a friends-only group on Facebook, for example.) It’s more about where I allocate the mental energy of this mental nomad that I have accepted I am. And while I’m so glad I finally moved my personal newsletter from Substack to beehiiv, it has made me think about how I’m now doing two newsletters on beehiiv…this one and Buffy Life Lessons.
This newsletter isn’t really happening every week-ish, even by the most charitable and relaxed measure. Whereas the Buffy newsletter is.
And as it turns out the Buffy newsletter starts every week with a rumination about whatever topic the episodes I watch each week evoke for me. And those topics have ranged widely so far:
Facing fear
The kinds of sacrifice that serve us and the kinds that don’t
Separating the art from the artist
Monster as metaphor from Frankenstein to Godzilla to Grimm’s to Buffy
Any of these could easily have been This Week-ish musings.
And yes, there’s a portion of the newsletter where I get really specific about which episodes I watched and the specific lessons I drew from them. The title is #BuffyLifeLessons after all.
But Im really hard-pressed to think of a reason that I cannot talk about anything I want to talk about in either of my personal, non-niche, idiosyncratic newsletters.
So, do I need two?
Or can the musing of the week, Buffy-specific lessons, and maybe an added section with any other signposting or link-sharing I want to do, be applicable to all? And more consistent, frankly.
I mean, maybe I should take my own advice from the most recent Buffy Life Lessons newsletter and just do it?
“So often, we worry about everything that could go wrong. We worry, simply, that things will go wrong. (And you know what? They most def will at some point, in some way.) My contention is that you need to ask yourself, “And then what?” Ask and answer until you get to the really concrete worst-case scenario of your amorphous fear. Only then can you decide if the effort, the experiment, the risk, is worth it. You may find, when you really break it down, that the result of failure may not be fun or pleasant or easy, but it’s not catastrophic. It’s not something from which you cannot recover. As Genevieve Bell, an Intel senior fellow when we ran in the same circles, used to quote her mother saying, “If it won’t result in death or dismemberment, you should try it.”
And yet I cannot resist asking your opinion on this idea (of consolidating to one personal newsletter)? What do you think?
BONUS: My headline is a reference to lyrics from one of the most beautiful songs ever, Naive Melody (This Must be the Place) by The Talking Heads. Check out the extremely on-brand quirky video for that song here:
a final word
You can take the reins [of your technology usage] too. It is neither too late, nor too hard, nor only worth it if you do it in a certain way.
This image at the outset of this newsletter is from the Summer, 1985 production of A Chorus Line at the Barn Theatre in August, MI. I believe it was the first pro/semi-pro production outside the national tours. Yes. I am in that picture somewhere :)
Until next time,
Elisa CP